Blood Pressure Variability and Stress Management Training for Essential Hypertension

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether stress management training reduces blood pressure (BP) variability in hypertensive patients. Previous literature suggests that cardiovascular risk is not only a function of BP levels, but also of BP variability, and this partially depends on changes induced by the stress of everyday life. The authors reanalyzed data from a previous study of 43 male patients with essential hypertension who were randomly assigned to 2 groups (stress management training and waiting list). Patients in the stress management group lowered their self-measured BP variability significantly from pretreatment to the 4-month follow-up examination, showing a mean reduction of 2.6/1.5 mm Hg in the standard deviation of systolic/diastolic BP (SBP/DBP), and a mean decrease of 1.84/1.59% in the coefficient of variation of SBP/DBP. For SBP, these reductions were significantly greater than those showed by the control group. These results suggest that stress management training is effective in reducing day-to-day BP variability, providing an additional reduction in cardiovascular risk for hypertensive patients.